Look At The Size of My Onions!

This is a picture of my lovely friends Bobbie and Larry with their dog Buddy, who's a little sweetheart.

We have been having a marvellous time. The first night we had a bonfire and cooked hotdogs and s'mores (which I had never had before). I now know why they are called s'mores, because every time I touched my face I said "I don't believe it, I have s'more marshamallow up my nose."

Bobbie, like me, is a big crime fiction reader. She has a lovely reading room (jealous, moi???). Here she is reading an Ian Rankin book (see, I knew I could bring this post kicking and screaming back on topic). The book shaped table next to her was made by Larry. Larry is both a lovely man and a genius. He can make anything, and he does. And, if he doesn't have a tool to make something then he makes the tool - out of anything he has lying around. He makes the most gorgeous cabinets and woodwork stuff and has made a couple of those glider chairs which are beautiful pieces of work.

This is him in his metalwork room (he also has a woodwork room - jealous, moi? OK - not so much as the reading room, but...) I swear that every time I say "Oooooh, that's so lovely", it has been made by Larry.

On Monday he made a rocket for going to Jupiter while Bobbie and I sat round and drank wine and ate chocolate.

Yesterday, we went to the supermarket. Now, this may not seem like a big deal to most people, but I love going to supermarkets over here. We don't have 6 mile long aisles of soft drinks in the UK. "Oh look here's guava and barbecue pork flavour orange and liquorice juice - I think I'll have some of that." And my, but isn't everything so much bigger in America? Look at the size of these onions, can you believe it? After we had taken this photo, giggling like a pair of six year olds, a lady doing her shopping came up to us and said "I can't believe you ladies just did that."

The countryside is so beautiful round here and the leaves are just starting to turn. We went to a lovely park in town and had a wander round so that I could take 17000 photographs of trees. Like this one. We also wandered through a cemetary. Which was...weird. I don't think this happens in the UK but there were gravestones for people who hadn't even died yet. Not one where someone is buried and there's also the name and date of birth of their spouse, with a space for the date of death (presumably as some sort of warning that he had better not get remarried to some blonde floozy half his age).

No. These were huge stones, with a picture of the happy couple, a carving of a rearing horse, an engraving of two intertwined gold rings with the date of their marriage, and their names and dates of birth. Neither of them were dead. That's like saying to your friends and family "Hank and I really don't think you lot will spend enough money on providing us with something ostentatious enough when we die, so we've done it ourselves. Hope you're not offended. Oh, and by the way, we're spending next Christmas at the grave site so that you can all admire it." Meanwhile, Hank's talking to his best mate and saying "Hey, Bill, there's an empty plot by Thelma and me - can you make sure that my mistress gets buried in it." And what if Hank and Thelma get gored to death by a wild horse? How are their relatives going to feel when they get reminded of the carnage every time they see the gravestone?

But, that was not the weirdest thing. Oh no. There was this enormous grave (about the size of 3 normal graves). A big stone in the middle and then a lifesize stone deer at either side. As we drove past, Bobbie spotted this white thing that looked as though it was underneath one of the deer. "What on earth is that?" "I have no idea," I said, "maybe it's a bag of deer guts?" So we had to get out and look. It was a penguin. A huge white plastic penguin that was looking down at a baby penguin between its feet. Unfortunately, the angle of the penguin's head, and the fancy metal bow tied around its neck, made it look as though it was the victim of a hanging. And since when did Bambi have a wee pal who was a penguin? Especially an albino one.

I'm sorry but if anyone does anything like that when I die I swear I am going to come back and haunt them. And talking of haunting - people have really gone to town on the decorating their houses for Halloween. Either that, or this is the home of the Addams Family.

Last night, I dreamed that I had built myself an enormous grave in someone's back garden, complete with fairground carousel and a car. Bobbie, on the other hand, dreamed I crept into her bedroom while they were asleep and took all her clothes and started wearing them. I do believe that is dream code for "I hate you, get out of my house."